...an award-nominated Irish blog on Irish history and Irish politics-from today and yesterday:all 32 Counties !Updated a number of times each week . (Mirror site here)

" A wealth of information..."

"1169 And Counting is a wealth of information on our Republican past and present , and demonstrates how the Irish political landscape , like that of any nation, will never be a black and white issue..."

IRISH BLOG AWARDS 2017 - ooops! It seems that our entry application was "not completed in time to be considered.." (?) and, as such, we are not now in the running. But we wish all the best to the successful entrants and to the organisers, and we hope all goes well for them on the day!

" The reactions of others to these events and commemorations are also revealing because , if considered in detailed context, they give us some idea of which are the really progressive forces at work in the world , and which are sham distortions that require normally intelligent people to stand on their heads concerning former opinions or to ignore huge gaps of factual history and political realities in order to maintain their position in current fashionable power-circles.

Sinn Féin Poblachtach have , ever since the Treaty sell-out of 1921 , the Fianna Fáil sell-out of 1926-27 , the Stickie sell-out of 1969-70 and the Super-Stickie betrayal of Irish Republican principles in the 1980's , continued to stick to basics that are so painful in their clarity that no effort is spared by some very strange bed-fellows to keep the younger generation in the dark about the basic historical facts.

Thus while academics and summer schools , not to mention the establishment media , rushed to celebrate the French Revolution with considerations of food-fads and fashions , they nearly all ignored the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the First Dáil Éireann by the Republican Sinn Féin members who had won a mandate for the establishment of an all-Ireland Parliament in the British-run general election at the end of 1918......."(MORE LATER).

BETRAYAL.......The (State) Gardaí used John Corcoran (pictured) as a (P)IRA informer. They allowed him to be killed by another (P)IRA informer, and have since refused to investigate his murder*.From 'MAGILL' magazine, Christmas Annual 1997.By Ursula Halligan and Vincent Browne.(*'1169...' Comment - their word, not ours.)

On only three occasions in the thirteen and a half years since the murder* have the gardaí contacted John Corcoran's family ; once was immediately after the discovery of his body.

The second occasion was one brief meeting in 1989 , and although by then the gardaí were aware of Seán O'Callaghan's admission to the murder* , no information concerning that was given to the family.

The third occasion was earlier this year at the behest of the family - at that meeting , no information was forthcoming on the nature of the gardaí investigation , but the gardaí advised the family not to talk to the media. However , 'Magill' magazine have talked to and interviewed the Corcoran family.......(MORE LATER).

TRADE UNIONS AND THE HUNGER-STRIKE....... From 'IRIS' magazine, November 1981.

The presently dominant elements on the ICTU executive ignore their own body's precedents , and because of their political orientation try to obscure the real issue at hand , which is in line with their own policy because of their entrenched opposition to the Republican Movement and, by extension , to the prisoners.

Fortunately , the above-explained situation is not at all typical of the actual reality of wide support for the hunger-strikers demands which exists within the trade union movement in Ireland and abroad.

Since 1977 , trade unionists have been active , in a co-ordinated fashion , in support of the H-Block and Armagh prisoners . Much of the initial work was done by the 'Trade Union Campaign Against Repression' (TUCAR) group, which was a Dublin-based thirty-two county organisation composed of representative trade unionists and shop stewards.......(MORE LATER).